A journalist and homeschooling mother of three explores balancing a contemplative lifestyle amidst our technology-driven culture.

My Chicago Home

How can we best live as modern, active contemplatives where prairie meets city?

Monday, July 25, 2016

Letting the Chips Fall

Against my garage wall, is
a little contained garden, set like a semicircle against the siding. How it got
there is amusing. A decade or so back, we needed a tree taken down in our back
yard, and we asked the yard men to go ahead and leave the chips for us in the
driveway. We liked the idea of free wood chips for our landscaping.

I will never forget watching the truck as it
started to release its wood chip load. The three kids and I stood to watch,
noses to the window in anticipation, as the chips started to form a mound, a hill, and then...our jaws dropped as the truck dumped its entire
load of wood chips into a sizable mountain that measured a good twelve
feet in diameter and at least five feet tall!

The driver
waved cheerily and went on his way, leaving us to run outside and examine this
new geographical feature. It didn’t take long for the kids to discover that a plastic
winter toboggan slides well down a wood chip mountain.

My husband took one
look when he got home from work, and laughed at the ridiculous sight of enough
wood chips to open a garden center. All summer we shoveled. Every tree on the
property, flower bed, hidden nook and cranny -- all received a nice, thick decorative blanket of wood chips. We offered wood chips to neighbors. But
still, that pile grew smaller only infinitesimally.

Every imaginable spot in our yard receiveda blanket of wood chips!

One day, we
drove into the yard to see smoke emanating from the middle of the pile! It was
in the process of internally combusting under that summer sun. We grabbed the
rakes, spread the chips some more, and sprayed them down with water, so that no
real fire could incubate.

We reached
the end of ideas, as to what to do with all that mulch. When the pile had
finally shrunk to a somewhat manageable size, we shoved it against the exterior
wall of the garage into a shallow flower bed, contained by bricks. I found a damaged
statue of St. Francis that needed rescuing at Hobby Lobby. Three feet tall, the
resin statue had a hole in the top of his head and another in his knee. But arranged
strategically, St. Francis filled the space beautifully.

Hostas took up
residence and flaming orange day lilies. A garden trellace backed St. Francis,
and then a decorative black iron grillwork of grapes and leaves. A sundial came
to perch on the bricks, a good reminder of time’s passing and of keeping
perspective and priorities in order.

Later, a
local lady needed a new home for her lovely concrete grotto of Mary. It was so
heavy, it took four of us to put the shrine in our car. Back home, we placed it
next to the St. Francis garden. Her corner was unattractive, so this summer, I
got to work. Sept the area clean and positioned a nice garden stepping stone in
front, creating a lovely surface for candles.

I replanted
some of flourishing, fragrant mint into pots to flank the shrine, and found a
waist-high trellace of cast iron, drastically reduced at a neighborhood store.
A bell hangs from the trellace. It makes a nice, mellow clang, like a call to
prayer. The top of the trellace is shaped like a crown. I placed the trellace
in just such a way, that this little outdoor area for Our Lady is now an enclosed
little nook that looks like it was designed carefully. I placed a chair there,
and have started praying Rosaries in that peaceful spot.

I just sat
out there a moment ago, and this thought came to me: this corner of the
garage, was once one of the least attractive and most abandoned spots in the yard. But now I
love it. It all started with that surprising wood chip pile. Whoever had
the idea of creating a planting bed from those remaining chips, set up a
situation that evolved into a lovely prayer spot years down the road. Every day
this summer, I’ve been raking that spot, tending it, placing plants and candles
there. And now the spot is loving me back! It beckons to me daily.

This sort of intentional care, nurtures friendships and family ties, too, as well as
our intimacy with God. If we long for eternity and love Our Creator
intentionally, each day, through prayer, Mass, and seeking God’s Will in
everything, than our relationship to Him will begin to bloom in all sorts of
creative, surprising and wonderful ways.

When I
visited remote missionaries across our nation for Catholic home mission
EXTENSION Magazine, I saw priests, religious and lay people acting just like
earnest gardeners, in tending their mission outposts, and their personal friendship with God
and their people. In impoverished spots, I saw literal gardens, that, in their blooming, seemed emblematic of all the great things happening in the spiritual and material realm through God's promptings. I saw grottoes tended and humble, yet lovely churches. I also saw practical outreaches blooming, in the form of clean
and efficient soup kitchens and resale shops, so the poor could buy what they
needed.

We have our
own missionary outreach in our daily lives, right within the four walls of our
home, and outside, too, in our neighborhoods. And if
things get tough, we can be inspired by our missionaries and their people. They
encounter some of the toughest situations amidst poor and often desolate
locations. They go toward areas others flee, and then mindfully and prayerfully
allow God to work, causing wonderful things to manifest -- and souls and personalities -- to bloom. May we, too, be open to the ideas
and promptings given to us through the Holy Spirit, so we can be agents of
beauty and change in our suffering world.

A mission field for bloggers:

"Without fear we must set sail on the digital sea, facing into the deep with the same passion that has governed the ship of the Church for two thousand years...we want to qualify ourselves by living in the digital world with a believer’s heart, helping to give a soul to the Internet’s incessant flow of communication."

A member of this great group...

And podcast "Missionary Moments" on Deacon Tom and Dee Fox's site offering nutrients to the soul...

Catholic Vitamins is affiliated with the global Starquest Production Network.

Catholic Vitamin W: Witness

Click on image to hear Deacon Tom Fox's (Catholic Vitamins) and my reflections on being a Christian witness in daily life. To hear the entire broadcast for Vitamin W, and access other Catholic Vitamins podcasts, click on the Catholic Vitamins banner above.

I am a voiceover artist for Shalom TV, launched in the U.S. on Divine Mercy Sunday, 2014

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence...

Click image to hear my family sing "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence," and my poem and meditation on "Silent Joy." This Advent/Christmas reflection is featured at the beginning of Catholic Vitamins podcast "Z" for Zealousness. Deacon Tom Fox's featured guest for the show is Catholic novelist and Chicago native Thomas Craughwell.